Author: BenG

If you regularly tie tzitzit yourself, you know it’s very rare for the tzitzit to come out the same length. Or you might be among the few who adhere to halacha that says attractive tzitzit (noy tzitzit) are wound and knotted for one-third of the length (the gid) and hang loose for two-thirds (anaf).

So how do you trim the tzitzit strings? Once our own zirconium oxide tzitzit cutting scissors broke, and we needed a an interim solution until they could be replaced. So during an outing to Jerusalem I asked my sons to find shards of glass. (This part is easier if you live in or near a bad neighborhood.) Each one came to me with his shard, and I chose one with a nice sharp cutting edge. For about a week that’s what I used to cut tzitzit. It was about three times the effort of ceramic scissors and the results were far inferior. 

Once someone asked me why this product came into the world. Surely the demand among Jews to avoid trimming scissors with metal implements is not enough of a market force to stir manufacturers into action.

Small ceramic scissors are sometimes used by fisherman to cut fishing line, because a wet tackle box makes their metal scissor rust. Electricians may have these scissors among their tools, because they don’t conduct electricity. And cooks may keep a pair on hand in the kitchen, because they don’t impart any taste to food (e.g. when cutting lettuce), they never need sharpening and the smooth surfaces are easy to clean. 

For tzitzit, they are not only very helpful for trimming when you finish tying, but also when the tzitzit start to fray a bit at the tips, instead of rushing to replace them you can snip off half an inch and they look like new.

Go to Zirconium Oxide Tzitzit Scissors page

For several years I’ve seen a popular tallit listed on Amazon under the heading, “Talitnia Traditional Tallit 100% Wool.” The price was is good (about the same as our price), but we sell the same tallit with a number of perks that may appeal to prospective buyers.

• On the product page you’ll see an option for a matching bag for just $12.50.
• We offer various other tzitzit options, such as hand-spun, thick and techelet (blue). I see from the Amazon questions and answers and product reviews that a number of people are not so happy with the default tzitzit option.
• If you don’t want just black striping, we sell the exact same Talitania Traditional Wool Tallit with black-silver striping or black-gold striping or blue-silver and blue-gold. 

Go to Talitnia Traditional Wool Tallit>>

Note that the black-striped traditional wool tallit includes an atara (neckband) with a subtle satin on white diamond and leaf pattern, whereas the black-silver and black-gold have the Tzitzit Bracha embroidered on the atara.

Also note that the Prima A.A. Tallit is very similar, with a slightly better weave.

For a few years tallit and tzitzit orders from San Francisco, California trickled in slowly, but in the past several months there seems to be a significant uptick. Also, based on what I can surmise from the order details, there are a number of frum tallit and tzitzit buyers in San Francisco.

Two decades ago, about a year after I got married, my wife and I traveled from our home in Betar, Israel to my parents’ home in Portland, Oregon. It was the first time my wife had ever been in the US. When we landed and got into a taxi, she gazed out the window in wonder, and marveled out loud. “So many goyim! You just see more and more. Just like in the movies.”

But when we passed through San Francisco overnight (where I met up with an old friend from Berkeley), the tables were turned. 

We had some time on our hands, so I took my wife for a stroll around Fisherman’s Wharf. (Had I told her what those people were standing in line to buy at the food stands, she wouldn’t have believed me that respectable Americans eat such things.) Then walking down the street I noticed that two young ladies, probably around the age of 19, had stopped a few feet behind us. One of them pointed to her friend and said in a loud whisper, “Look, they’re Jews!”

Was it my dark suit and fedora that gave us away, or my tzitzit?

I’ve never spent much time in the City (the closest I ever lived to San Francisco was Santa Cruz), but I get the idea that back then there were not a lot of people wearing tzitzit there.

Now that may be slowly changing.

Looking over recent orders from San Francisco I see several professionals buying tzitzit, a young man getting married who purchased a kittel, a tallit for a bar mitzvah and several black-striped nonslip tallits, an Israeli in exile and a number of techelet wearers.

It seems to me that one of the main concerns of our customers in Florida is finding tallit and tzitzit products that perform well in heat and humidity. When I skim through orders from Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando and Jacksonville, I see a lot of purchases of our Kalit and Wool Comfort, which are light and comfortable tallit katan garments for those who wear wool, and PerfTzit, which is for those who stick with cotton.

In my humble opinion, you don’t necessarily need a lightweight tallit when the weather is hot and humid, because a lot of people wear their tallit only in the synagogue, which may have excellent climate control. But of course some people prefer a lightweight tallit regardless of the weather.

I also noticed there is a fairly high number of techelet tzitzit buyers, kittel buyers and customers opting for Sephardic tying. 

The most popular tallit choices are traditional wool white-striped or white-silver, various top-of-the-line black striped tallits, the Bnei Ohr rainbow striped tallit and several different blue-striped tallits.

It also seems there are a large number of customers purchasing a Chabad tallis or tallis katan (especially in Orlando).

Our gold- and burgundy-striped tallit has become a big hit. I noticed that this week we got four orders for this tallit within one week (from customers in Memphis, Reston, Houston and Boynton Beach).

We used to sell a nice gray-striped tallit with burgundy pinstripes, but Mishkan Hatchelet stopped producing it. That meant the only tallits with red in them that we sold were not red-striped tallits, but hand-woven tallits with wine red or burgundy as the base color. And of course not all of our customers can afford a hand-woven tallit, and some prefer a traditional wool tallit with white as a base color, but they really like the burgundy striping.

I think the burgundy works well for those who want some color in their tallit, but not brash colors, and the gold complements the burgundy nicely. By the way, some people might describe the tallit striping as maroon, rather than burgundy — it’s a close call.

Another tallit with burgundy striping is the Nitai Gray & Burgundy Striped Tallit, which has predominantly gray striping, with burgundy pinstripes.

I remember when I was about ten years old, while poking around in my grandmother’s a”h closet I came across my grandfather’s disused tefillin, which were already several decades old. I think he had passed away by then, and she wanted me to have them. I cherished that set of tefillin, but years later, when I had someone check them, they were found to be quite low quality.

This week we received the following inquiry:

I have some religious items from my parents and grandparents. They include menorahs, kiddush cup, items purchased in Israel, prayer books, skull caps, and a set of tefillin. I want to sell all in one lot and receive an online offer. It seems the tefillin are generating the most interest and I would to find a way to get proper value.

I see there is quite a variety of quality and wonder how to tell the quality of the set. Prices can vary from $100-$500. My grandfather was a very religious man; to honor his memory I would like to get the proper value for something he would have treasured. Thanks for your help with this. – Ken

I explained to Ken that there’s really no way to do any sort of meaningful value assessment. That’s like writing an email to a jeweler saying, “I have a gorgeous diamond ring, how much is it worth?” He needs to at least see the quality of the stones up close, and he’ll want to take out that device they have nowadays to ascertain whether all of the diamonds are real or not.

If you take a set of tefillin to a tefillin professional, he would immediately be able to tell you if it’s Tefillin Peshutim or Tefillin Gassot. Then he would see whether the corners and paint and straps are still in good shape and the caliber of the finishing work to begin with (that sounds simple, but you won’t be able to judge that either). So in two minutes he could give you a ballpark figure. But to really know, he’d have to open them up and take a look at the parchments, which takes a lot of time to open and sew up again, and costs you at least $30 or $40.

I suggested that Ken get in touch with a local tefillin maker, and if he can’t find one, perhaps ask the local Chabad center. Another possibility would be to get in touch with a tefillin professional online and see if they can help somehow. I don’t know him personally, but I was very impressed with this tefillin and mezuza website based in Monsey, New York.